Article

International Drag Day
By Mary Bishop-Baldwin
Oklahomans for Equality History Project
Thursday, July 16, is International Drag Day, and Oklahomans for Equality is proud to recognize how important drag performers have been in building community, providing entertainment, and donating their time and talent to raise money for important causes. We are taking International Drag Day as an opportunity to review the rich history of drag in the Tulsa area.
We are drawing upon our growing archival collection at Oklahomans for Equality to provide this summary of how drag artists have been powerhouses of performance and activism in Tulsa through the years. The AIDS crisis that emerged in the 1980s and OkEq’s purchase of a permanent home for the community in the 2000s were prime beneficiaries of Tulsa drag queens’ fundraising benevolence.
There are many more stories to share with your help. If you have been involved in the local drag community and have memorabilia that you’d like to contribute to our collection, we’d be happy to receive it at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center. You can contact us at historyproject@okeq.org.
Here are some of the types of things we have: programs from some Miss Gay Oklahoma and Miss Gay America pageants; an extensive video collection of drag performances and competitions from the Silver Star bar in Tulsa; interviews with local drag queens; newspaper stories about Drag Queen Bingo; newsletters with information about drag events; information from a history of Tulsa’s gay bars written in or around 1990; and scholarly research from a doctoral dissertation about Tulsa’s gay history.
The dictionary defines drag as “entertainment in which performers caricature or challenge gender stereotypes (as by dressing in clothing that is stereotypical of another gender, by using exaggeratedly gendered mannerisms, or by combining elements of stereotypically male and female dress) and often wear elaborate or outrageous costumes.” However, as our archives show, drag is much, much more than entertainment. It is performance art, often with a message and a cause.
Before the modern concepts of “drag queen” and “drag king” emerged and “RuPaul’s Drag Race” took to the airwaves in 2009, female impersonators and male impersonators were taking the spotlight in Tulsa’s mainstream venues in the early part of the 1900s. In his 2016 doctoral dissertation “Coming Out of the Shadows: A Social and Educative History of Male Same-Sex Sexualities in Tulsa, Oklahoma, 1836-2006,” Brenton R. Wimmer wrote that during the vaudeville era female impersonators traveled to cities across the country. “Three female impersonators made appearances in (Tulsa) from 1913-1922: Hal Johnson, Karyl Norman, and the famous Julian Eltinge. Another
act, a male impersonator known as Collis Le Page, graced the stage at the Yale Theater as early as January 1914,” Wimmer wrote. “In a 1909 interview, Eltinge explained that he spent two hours transforming himself into a woman with the help of his male Japanese dresser, Shima. Almost an hour would be devoted to his makeup, and Eltinge noted, ‘It depends on where you put the paint, not how much you splash on.’” The dissertation is available for perusal in the History Project.
Not much information is available about drag in Tulsa between those traveling acts of the early 20th century and the 1950s, but the archives contain mentions of drag performances at Tulsa gay bars in the midcentury.
A circa 1990 writeup about the history of Tulsa’s gay bars by Tim Turner, who owned Tim’s Playhouse, says Friends Lounge at Third Street and Utica Avenue, owned by Tracy “Tony” McLaughlin, “was famous for its Friday night drag shows and was a coming out place for hundreds over the years. Unfortunately, much of the potential profits went for court costs and attorney fees over time. Frequent police raids and obvious, blatant incidents of harassment were much too frequent … .”
“I will never forget, with amusement, one time when Tracy was to appear in court on a trumped up charge of some kind, I asked him if he had a good attorney and he told me he didn't need one,” Turner continued. “When I asked why not, he told me to show up in court and see for myself. Tracy showed up in court with five stunning, outlandish, drag queens and the case was thrown out before they had a chance to parade to the witness stand. The Judge didn't want his court room turned into a circus, although the police had already taken the first step towards that end.”
Tim Griffin, aka Porsche Lynn, an activist and local drag queen for nearly 50 years, said in an interview for “Pride: The LGBTQ+ Episode History Series” on YouTube, that he first performed drag in 1978.
Kent Harrell, aka Anita Richards, who has been doing drag almost as long, told the OkEq History Project in December 2025 that he first performed in 1979 at Tracy's New Edition, where the Tulsa Eagle is now located at 1338 E. Third St., when it had amateur nights on Mondays. He also mentioned Zippers, near 32nd Street and Yale Avenue, and Caruso’s downtown as prime spots for drag entertainment during the early years of his career.
But bars and courtrooms were not the only stages for Tulsa’s drag shows. As time went by, pageants and crowns moved into the spotlight, and Tulsa’s performers became instrumental in community pride and activism.
The Miss Gay Oklahoma pageant was begun in 1978, with Trudy Tyler holding the first title. In 1985, the Miss Gay Oklahoma of America pageant was held from Aug. 30 to Sept. 2 at the then-swanky Camelot Inn at Interstate 44 and Peoria Avenue, shocking
the city. The Tulsa World reported in a 2016 retrospective that “protesters from local churches marched near the Camelot when 13 contestants competed in the Miss Gay Oklahoma pageant in the hotel’s Great Hall.” In his history of gay bars, Turner called the Camelot pageant “the largest, most spectacular Oklahoma Gay Event in history” at that time.
The Miss Gay Oklahoma pageant is a precursor to the Miss Gay America pageant, which was begun in 1972, according to its website.
The earliest mention of drag kings found in Oklahomans for Equality’s (or its predecessor organizations’) newsletters came in the summer of 2003, when the Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights Torch included an article advancing that year’s TOHR Diversity Festival and mentioned that, along with female impersonators, drag kings would be among the entertainers. But in a 2004 oral history interview, Anna Dodwell recalled that Zippers had drag king performances as early as the early to mid-1980s.
New doors continue to be opened in the pageant world, with the Miss Gay America Femme Pageant, which “celebrates the beauty, talent, and resilience of cis and trans women within the LGBTQ+ community,” premiering in January 2025, according to its website. A Miss Gay Oklahoma America Femme pageant was held in 2025, with Tulsa’s Londenn Davenport Raine (Miss Gay United States at Large 2021) taking that title.
Randy Vineyard, aka Kris Kohl, when interviewed by the History Project several years ago, talked about how effective drag queens can be in fundraising and advocacy for the community. “People will a lot of times listen to an entertainer; they won’t listen to the person behind them,” he said. “The illusion that you create is what people will go by. That is what people will appreciate, and that is what people will remember. … People a lot of times, when you are a title holder, will pay more attention to you, and sometimes you are able to raise more money that way.
“So we try to instill in these kids (young drag queens) that’s part of it, too. It’s not just wearing a sash or wearing a crown or looking pretty. It’s about entertaining. It’s about grasping your audience, making them realize that the community is in need. And you have that power of being on that stage with that microphone in your hand to get to those people, to get to their heart, get to their minds, and, weirdly enough, to their pocketbooks. That is how you pull in the money for a good cause.”
Griffin said in the YouTube video: “I’ve always said that anytime you want to build anything or buy anything you call the drag queens because we can put on a heel and a lash and raise you enough money to build or buy anything.”
Beyond performances themselves, Drag Queen Bingo has emerged as a phenomenon for fundraising. The Tulsa World published stories in May 2007, August 2010 and again in August 2011 about upcoming Drag Queen Bingo events at Cain’s Ballroom to raise
money for Our House Too, which worked to eliminate the social isolation of Tulsa-area people living with HIV/AIDS and to provide food and toiletries for its clients. The annual event and fundraiser for Our House Too was later held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, the July 17, 2013, OkEq eNews notes.
Fundraising for the purchase and remodeling of the building that became the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center, home of Oklahomans for Equality at 621 E. Fourth St., was also a priority for Tulsa’s drag community. Former OkEq Executive Director Toby Jenkins, in interviewing Harrell last year, commented that “I can remember you helping us raise money to buy this building. You would perform at some of the big events that we would have. I can remember you and Kris Kohl performing at the old Brady Mansion (now the Skyline Mansion) on Denver.” Harrell, aka Anita Richards, responded: “That was such a unique experience to come down those stairs and see all those people at the foot. … It made you feel quite like a celebrity.”
And over many years, the performers were front and center at the Equality Center for drag brunches and Drag Queen Bingo, which raised tens of thousands of dollars in support of the annual Pride celebration. Dale Hogan, performing as Granny Rainbow, created sold-out crowds as OkEq’s main fundraiser for Tulsa Pride.
The Tulsa Sisters for Perpetual Indulgence, a chapter of a national organization formed in 1979, also raises money and awareness, as well as spirits. The Tulsa Sisters, who wear nuns’ habits and extravagant makeup with white face paint, satirize the stigma traditionally associated with LGBTQ issues. Another local nonprofit, the Imperial Court of All Oklahoma – a chapter of the International Court System – also is connected to the drag and performance culture and raises funds for local community causes.
Elevating the fun and outrageousness of drag over the years was Twisted Theater, produced and directed at New Age Renegade, 1649 S. Main St., by Brielle Devoe, who performed as Tabitha Taylor. The monthly shows reimagined and “twisted” the plots of campy film classics.
But beyond the fun and frivolity of drag performances, serious subjects have been elevated in the public’s mind by local drag performers, many of whom have become advocates for our community and have influenced public policy makers. After Brandon Patrick-Brewer, aka Shanel Sterling, was severely beaten and stabbed as his attackers hurled anti-gay slurs in 2009, he was willing to share his story as a hate crime victim with state legislators and city councilors. Shanel Sterling went on to become Miss Gay Oklahoma USofA in 2012 and Miss Gay Oklahoma America in 2018.
Tulsan Travis Guillory, aka Tracy La Louisianne, is the reigning Miss Gay America, having been crowned in Little Rock in January 2026. Guillory, who is the executive director of Theatre Tulsa, told the Tulsa Flyer for a June 23 story that “he’s not sure where life will take him by the time his reign ends in January. For now, he’s focused on a full calendar of gigs and the mission in front of him: representing Oklahoma on the
national stage and serving as a beacon of hope for those feeling targeted by anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric.”
That rhetoric and recent legislative attacks on drag performance art and transgender people has been a motivating factor for Tim Griffin, aka Porsche Lynn, to get back into the game in his 60s. While retired, “I watched the political environment getting scarier and scarier coming after our trans brothers and sisters and in turn coming after the gay community, and I thought, ‘I’m going to have to get back in this,’ because I wanted the younger generation of kids to understand where they came from and that we fought for years to give them the right to do drag and to have RuPaul and to have the drag brunches, and I wanted them to know how we got there and why they’re coming against us right now and what we’ve got to do to be prepared to fight them again,” he said.
With the “mainstreaming” of gay people and drag performers on TV with shows starting with “Ellen,” “Will & Grace” and “RuPaul’s Drag Race” – and then when same-sex marriage became a reality more than a decade ago – “we became like this utopia of ‘We have arrived.’ It was the golden years or the golden era of gayness,” Griffin said. “And while we were celebrating and while we were having brunch and having a great time, the other side was building an army and building ammunition to come against us.”
Last year the Oklahoma Legislature passed and Gov. Kevin Stitt signed into law House Bill 1217, which many people referred to as an anti-drag measure. Actually, the new law bans any “adult performance which contains obscene material” on public property or in a public place viewable by a child. But, obviously, not all drag shows are obscene. A drag performance violates Oklahoma law only if it contains “obscene material.”
Griffin wants to make sure LGBTQ community members work together and that all have a seat at the table. “I think especially in the gay community right now, the drag queens have been always so accepting of the trans community because a lot of that went hand in hand, and I think the drag queens are so accepting because we were so ostracized for so many years, even within our own gay community, so I see us as the ones who are willing to accept everybody.
“But I also think that the drag queens now have got to work with … a lot of young kids in their 20s – 21, 22. … We need to use our positions to educate them and to get them off on the right foot of accepting everybody, of loving everybody, and protecting our community, but also just being decent people.”
More oral history videotaped interviews are planned with Tulsa’s historic drag performers as well as with others who have played roles in the area’s LGBTQ history. If you have that history and would consider being interviewed – or if you have documents or other memorabilia that should be in the Oklahomans for Equality History Project archives – please contact the History Project at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center, historyproject@okeq.org.